Looking for a faster and easier way to start phone calls, text conversations, or email messages with people in your contacts list? Cardhop for iOS from Flexibits brings the Mac version’s speed and elegance to the iPhone and iPad. Adam Engst takes a look.
Following closely upon the release of the new iPad Air and iPad mini, Apple’s latest iWork update brings the productivity suite’s iOS apps closer to parity with their Mac siblings.
After taking a close look at Preview in Mojave while updating “Take Control of Preview,” Adam Engst comes away disappointed. The new features aren’t impressive, one notable change is actively bad, and there are new bugs. But he’d still like to see Apple enhance the still-powerful graphics and PDF editor.
Siri takes a lot of flak, but it’s a lot more powerful than many people realize. If you haven’t been using Siri for much, these tips from “Take Control of Siri” author Scholle McFarland will expand your conversations with Apple’s digital assistant—and hopefully get Siri to do more for you.
If you’d like to use another screen with your MacBook while traveling but can’t figure out how to arrange and support it, Jeff Porten has found a simple clip that attaches an iPad to a MacBook for use as a second display.
Remember what it was like in the early days of laptops and Internet access when we first started to be able to use technology while traveling? At the turn of the century, Gideon Greenspan penned a pair of articles for TidBITS about how he kept his shareware business humming on a PowerBook G3 during a 2-month trip through Asia.
A bevy of major US retailers, including Jack in the Box, Hy-Vee supermarkets, Speedway convenience stores, Taco Bell, and Target are now supporting Apple Pay, putting a final nail in the coffin of rival digital wallet CurrentC.
Backblaze has rolled out a major 6.0 update that improves performance, increases restore drive sizes, and offers options for permanent backup storage, among other things.
OmniFocus, the power user tool of choice for Mac task management, has reached version 3 on the Mac, the iOS version has caught up in features, and a Web version is in beta. Jeff Porten discusses task management in general, what’s new and great in OmniFocus, and where the trouble spots still are.
Is your iPhone consuming your life? Are your kids having trouble putting their iPads down when it’s time for bed? iOS 12’s new Screen Time feature provides tools you can use to monitor and manage your usage and that of your family members. Josh Centers has a quick guide on how to use them.
The SubEthaEdit text editor, whose real-time collaborative editing features were jaw-dropping when it first came out, is back with version 5, and is now free and open source.
For those whose offices cannot accommodate a full-size standing desk, a converter placed atop an existing desk serves the same function. Ergotron’s newest converter, the WorkFit-TX, remedies the flaws in other such products. It isn’t cheap, though.
Email management is, for most of us, a constant battle to deal with an uncontrollable number of messages in a finite amount of time. Many email apps try to “help” with tricks to hide email messages until later, but these are counterproductive. “Take Control of Your Productivity” author Jeff Porten suggests better methods.
The just-released Nisus Writer Pro 3.0 brings over 300 changes to the legendary word processor, including Split View, greatly improved comments, user interface enhancements, and many bug fixes.
If you’re involved in a nonprofit organization that has technology needs, TechSoup provides deeply discounted software and services. Jeff Porten is a fan, but he found that signing up for and making good use of TechSoup requires some effort. Here’s what he learned.